Hi, all, hope you had a terrific weekend! We’re in the thick of Disrupt so don’t have a column prepared for you, but you can catch our on-stage interview from earlier this morning with Josh Kopelman of First Round Capital, Andy Weissman of Union Square Ventures, and Chris Douvos of Venture Investment Associates. (The topic, broadly speaking: how in the world institutional investors get paid in today’s market.)

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Top News in the A.M.

Lending Club shares are down more than 25 percent this morning after the company announced that CEO and founder Renaud Laplanche would resign following an internal review of $22 million in near-prime loan sales to a single investor. TechCrunch has more here.

The lawsuit over the mental competency of the ailing mogul Sumner Redstone was dismissed this morning, after the judge viewed videotaped testimony from the 92-year-old billionaire that was shown on Friday. The New York Times has more here.

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New Fundings

CoreOS, a two-year-old, San Francisco-based company behind the container-centric CoreOS Linux distribution and Tectonic container management service, has raised $28 million in Series B funding led by GV, with participation from Accel Partners, Fuel Capital, Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers and the Y Combinator Continuity Fund. The company has now raised $48 million altogether. TechCrunch has more here.

Musikki, a 5.5-year-old, London-based image management and distribution platform, has raised $1 million in fresh funding from Portugal Ventures, the biggest venture firm in Portugal. TechCrunch has more here.

Pivotal, a three-year-old, Palo Alto, Ca.-based software company that helps its customers build up their own software development capabilities, has raised more than everyone thought. Recode reported last Friday that it had garnered $253 million in Series C funding at a $2.8 billion valuation from Ford, Microsoft, EMC, VMware and GE. Turns out that was the tip of the iceberg; according to an SEC filing turned up Friday, the company has received a total of $653 million in new funding. Fortune has more here.

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New Funds

The private equity firm TPG has announced a final close of its latest North American- and European-focused private equity fund, TPG Partners VII with $10.5 billion in commitments, including $400 million from TPG and its personnel. More here.

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IPOs

Talend, a Redwood Shores, Ca.-based software firm that helps corporations organize and analyze data, has hired investment banks for an IPO, say Reuters sources, who tell the outlet that Talend has already registered its IPO confidentially with the SEC. More here.

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Exits

Bango, the U.K.-based mobile payments company that provides tech to enable consumers to charge app store purchases directly to their phone bill, has acquired the U.S.-based carrier billing service BilltoMobile from Danal for $3.5 million in mostly cash and newly issued Bango shares. TechCrunch has more here.

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People

Point72 Asset Management, which manages hedge fund billionaire Steve Cohen‘s fortune, has made its first venture investment as it looks to refine investment decisions and improve returns. Reuters has more here.

Joe Lonsdale, co-founder of Palantir Technologies, has fired back at a report published by Buzzfeed alleging that the data analysis firm he now advises has been struggling. Fortune has more here.

Ruby Lu, cofounder of DCM China, has joined H Capital, a China-focused venture capital firm founded by Tiger Global Management‘s former China managing partner, Chen Xiaohong. DealStreetAsia has more here.

John McAfee, America’s favorite (and most entertaining) cybersecurity expert has a new gig. TechCrunch has more here.

Keith Rabois of Khosla Ventures thinks Uber could go public “at around $25 billion” (and not its private-market valuation of $60 billion) if it were to IPO today.

Norman Winarsky, the former president of SRI Ventures and co-founder and board member of Siri, has joined Relay Ventures as the firm’s first executive-in-residence.

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Jobs

Union Square Ventures is hiring an analyst. The job is in New York. (Work those connections; this is one of the best entry-level gigs in the business.)

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Data

The law firm Fenwick & West just analyzed the terms of 148 venture financings closed in the first quarter of 2016 by companies headquartered in Silicon Valley, finding small declines in the number of up rounds, as well as average and median prices. More here.

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Essential Reads

Here’s the first demo of Viv, the next generation AI assistant built by Siri creator Dag Kittlaus.

Twitter has cut off U.S. intelligence agencies from access to a service that sifts through the entire output of its social-media postings, the latest example of tension between Silicon Valley and the U.S. government. The WSJ has more here.

The company developing Elon Musk‘s 700 mile-per-hour maglev train has announced new details about the levitation system it plans to use.

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Detours

What the science of touch says about us.

The 50 best dive bars in New York.

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Retail Therapy

The perfect customizable sofa system (says Design Milk).

Hi, everyone, we made it! Happy Friday from beautiful, rainy, hectic New York City. Hope you’re in for a terrific weekend. We’ll see you Monday, after we finish an onstage interview at Disrupt with Josh Kopelman of First Round Capital, Andy Weissman of Union Square Ventures, and Chris Douvos of Venture Investment Associates.

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Top News in the A.M.

Lyft says it’s rolling out self-driving taxis — next year.

Square reported first quarter earnings yesterday that beat analysts expectations. Still, its shares fell as much as 20 percent on concerns about financing for its small-business customer-loan program, a service once viewed as a growth area for the company.

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New York’s ff Venture Capital Just Raised a $54 Million Fund, and It’s Targeting Another

New York-based venture firm ff Venture Capital, has raised $53.8 million for its fourth seed-stage venture fund, according to an SEC filing that shows fundraising began in the fall of 2014.

The firm had closed its third seed-stage fund fund in January 2014 with $52 million. Since then, ff Venture Capital has hired two new partners, including Adam Plotkin, who was formerly one of its entrepreneurs-in-residence, and Michael Faber, who’d spent nearly two decades as a general partner with NextPoint VC.

Earlier (and remaining) partners with the firm include its founder, John Frankel; Alex Katz, who does double duty as the firm’s CFO; and David Teten, who previously cofounded a short-lived data mining and analytics company called Navon Partners.

Some of ff Venture’s biggest exits in recent years include the learning software maker Cornerstone OnDemand, which went public in 2011; ThinkNear, a hyper-local mobile ad company that sold to Telenav in 2012 for undisclosed terms; and Omek Interactive, which sold to Intel for $40 million in 2013.

The firm has also seen two of its portfolio companies sell this year. In February, the car service app Whisk sold to the cloud and mobile commerce company Deem, and last week, Livefyre, a portfolio company focused on brand engagement, was acquired by Adobe. Terms of both deals weren’t disclosed publicly.

ff Venture Capital (the “ff” stands for founder friendly) employs 30 people, including recruiting, PR, and investor relations staff to assist its portfolio companies. Some of those that remain privately held are Indiegogo, Plated, Distil Networks, Ionic Security, and Skycatch.

Indeed, according to a source familiar with the firm’s plans, ff Venture Capital is still in the fundraising market, with plans to raise a separate “opportunities” fund to invest in the best-performing companies in its existing portfolio. The idea is to invest in 15 of the roughly 85 startups the firm has funded to date across its four early-stage funds.

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New Fundings

360fly, a 16-year-old, Pittsburgh, Pa.-based company behind a single-lens camera that captures 360-degree video, has raised $40 million in Series C funding led by L Catterton Backers, with participation from Hydra Ventures, which is the corporate venture arm of Adidas Group. Earlier investor Qualcomm Ventures also joined the round. More here.

ACT Genomics, a two-year-old, Taipei, Taiwan-based integrated cancer molecular information company, has raised $12.5 million in Series B funding led by Hotung Group and CDIB Capital Management, with participation from earlier investors Eminent II VC, Hua Nan Venture Capital, President International Development and UMC Capital. More here.

DigiExam, a 4.5-year-old, Stockholm, Sweden-based startup that sells software-as-a-service for academic testing and grading, has raised $3.5 million in Series A funding, including from Joen Bonnier of the Bonnier family, owner of the largest media group in Sweden. TechCrunch has more here.

Drawbridge, a 5.5-year-old, San Mateo, Ca.-based ad tech company, has raised $25 million in Series C funding from Sequoia Capital, Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers, and Northgate Capital. TechCrunch has more here.

Omni, a two-year-old, San Francisco-based on-demand storage startup, has raised $7 million in Series A funding led by Highland Capital Partners, with participation from Bolt, Formation 8 and individual investors, including Drake and Scooter Braun. The company had previously raised $3 million in seed funding. Fortune has more here.

Pivotal, a three-year-old, Palo Alto, Ca.-based software company that helps its customers build up their own software development capabilities, has raised $253 million in Series C funding at a $2.8 billion valuation from Ford, Microsoft, EMC, VMware and GE. Recode has more here.

Sirqul, a four-year-old, Seattle, Wa.-based company behind an IoT platform, has raised $3 million in additional Series A funding led by Miteno USA. The round, closed now with $9 million, also includes Compal Electronics and numerous angel investors. More here.

Via, a four-year-old, New York-based on-demand rideshare app operating in New York City and Chicago, has raised $100 million in Series C funding led byPitango Growth, with participation from numerous other VCs and family offices including Poalim Capital Markets and C4 Ventures. TechCrunch hasmore here.

VTS, a five-old, New York-based commercial real estate management and leasing platform, has raised $55 million in Series C funding led by Insight Venture Partners, with participation from earlier investors OpenView and Trinity Ventures. The company has now raised $84 million to date. The Real Deal has more here.

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New Funds

venBio Partners, a seven-year-old, San Francisco-based life sciences investment firm, closed its second venture capital fund, with approximately $315 million. More here.

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Exits

Airtime, Sean Parker’s live mobile video chat platform, has acquired vLine, a  video chat infrastructure startup. No financial terms were disclosed. According to CrunchBase, vLine had raised $1.5 million from Harrison Metal and Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers. TechCrunch has more here.

Blackjet, a four-year-old, Florida-based on-demand jet service created by Uber co-founder and chairman Garrett Camp, has informed members that it is “abruptly” ceasing operations. Fortune has more here.

Hello, lovely and talented readers, happy Wednesday!

We’ll be on a plane to New York early tomorrow for TechCrunch Disrupt, so we can’t publish StrictlyVC. But look for your next issue Friday. See you then.:)

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Top News in the A.M.

It’s “Star Wars” Day again (we’re told). Just in time to celebrate, a new video marries the magic of the Force with the music of sold-out Broadway sensation “Hamilton.” The Washington Post has more here.

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eShares Puts the Screws to 409A Valuation Firms

very startup that gives employees option grants has to comply with 409A, a section of the U.S. tax code that was established in late 2004 and basically states that a company has to pay tax on some of the compensation it defers, including those options. The 409A valuations are a way to get to their value.

Unfortunately, for much of the last 12 years, such 409A audits have proved expensive, not to mention incredibly confusing. Accounting specialists initially charged startups north of $10,000 per audit, until a a sudden glut of specialists drove prices down fivefold. Meanwhile, many founders still don’t know precisely how valuation firms arrive at a particular number. Appraisers typically look at a company’s costs (meaning its assets and liabilities), its income, and/or the valuations of companies with similar financial and operating characteristics. But there’s little transparency into the whole process.

That’s not accidental or necessary, says Henry Ward, the cofounder and CEO of eShares, an 80-person Mountain View, Ca., startup that now works with more than 4,000 companies, digitizing their paper stock certificates along with stock options, warrants, and derivatives to create a real-time picture of who owns what. In fact, starting today, eShares is charging just $25 a month for its own wholly transparent 409A service. It’s also open sourcing its valuation models for startups that might like to manage the process themselves.

We talked with Ward yesterday about the new service and what it may presage.

There’s so much confusion about 409A valuations, including how they compare with a company’s fair market value. Is there an easy way to understand how the two work together?

In theory, and arguably in practice, a 409A valuation tends to run at a discount of 25 percent to the [value of a company’s] preferred shares. But as a company matures and heads towards an IPO, the 409A starts to converge toward the price that [investors have assigned it in its most recent funding round].

Why do you think confusion around 409A valuations has persisted for so long?

It’s consulting. When the IRS created this standard in the mid 2000s, they documented a set of models that you could use that would pass its requirements. Financial analysts got a hold of these models and they basically turned them into a trade secret. As more people ran into the business [to service startups], prices fell, but nobody solved the tech piece of it. Everyone was just hiring people to do cheaper and cheaper work.

Does that include you? You started offering 409A valuations as part of a bundled service a couple of years ago.

More here.

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New Fundings

Appboy, a five-year-old, New York-based mobile marketing automation platform, has raised $20 million in Series C funding led by Battery Ventures, with participation from earlier backers Blumberg Capital, Bullpen Capital, IDG Ventures, InterWest Partners, Metamorphic Ventures and Rally Ventures. VentureBeat has more here.

ChargePoint, a nine-year-old, Campbell, Ca.-based electric vehicle charging network, has raised $50 million in funding led by Linse Capital, with participation from earlier backers Braemar Energy Ventures and Constellation Energy. Automotive News has more here.

DFLabs, an 11-year-old, Milan, Italy-based company that makes automated cyber incident management and response software, has raised $5.5 million in Series A funding from Evolution Equity Partners. More here.

Farfetch, an eight-year-old, London-based a fashion e-commerce platform that connects consumers with a curated global network of boutiques and bigger brands, has just raised $110 million in Series F funding led by new investors Temasek, IDG Capital Partners and Eurazeo, with the participation of earlier investor Vitruvian Partners. The company has now raised roughly $305 million. This new round was reportedly sewn up at a post-money valuation of $1.5 billion. The Business of Fashion has the story here.

Full Measure Education, a three-year-old, Washington, D.C.-based mobile platform for post-secondary student communication and administrative management needs, has raised $6 million in Series B funding led by Safeguard Scientifics. More here.

Haven, a two-year-old, San Francisco, Ca.- and Singapore-based programmatic logistics platform that automates freight procurement for commodity traders, food producers, and CPG companies, has raised $11 million in Series A funding led by Spark Capital. Other participants include AITV and earlier backers O’Reilly Alpha Tech Ventures, Data Collective and First Round Capital. More here.

IDEAYA Biosciences, a year-old, South San Francisco, Ca.-based oncology-focused biotechnology company, has raised $46 million in Series A funding from 5AM Ventures, Canaan Partners, Celgene, WuXi Healthcare Ventures, Novartis Institute of Biomedical Research and Alexandria Real Estate Equities. Biospace has more here.

Job Market Maker, a three-year-old Charleston, S.C.-based online recruitment startup, has raised $1 million in Series A funding from Charleston Angel Partners. More here.

Jolla, a five-year-old, Helsinki, Finland-based mobile OS maker whose Sailfish licensing business aims competes with Android  by offering OEMs the ability to tailor the mobile platform to their needs, has raised $12 million in Series C funding from undisclosed investors. TechCrunch has more here.

LiveNinja, a five-year-old, Miami, Fla.-based live video chat marketplace that connects users with topic experts, has raised $2 million in fresh funding from Scout Ventures, Anzu Partners, Comcast Ventures Catalyst Fund, Citi Ventures, Accelerated Growth Partners and SeedInvest.  The company has now raised $3.5 million altogether. TechCrunch has more here.

OutboundEngine, a 3.5-year-old, Austin, Tex.-based automated marketing platform for small business owners, has raised $16 million in Series C funding led by S3 Ventures, with participation from Silverton Partners, Noro-Moseley, Harmony Partners, Altos Ventures and Capital Factory. The company has now raised $33.8 million to date. More here.

Passport, a six-year-old, Charlotte, N.C.-based company specializing in enterprise business applications and payments for parking and transportation, has raised $8 million in Series B funding led by MK Capital, with participation from earlier backers Grotech Ventures and Relevance Capital. The company has now raised $17 million altogether. TechCrunch has more here.

PowWow Mobile, a 3.5-year-old, San Francisco-based enterprise app mobility startup, has raised $4.3 million in new funding led by Vertical Venture Partners, with participation from IT-Farm, OurCrowd, Prabhakar Goel and VKRN. More here.

Rebagg, a two-year-old, New York-based online marketplace for previously owned designer handbags, has raised $8 million in Series A funding led byGeneral Catalyst Partners, which also led the company’s $4 million seed round last August. Other earlier investors to join the new financing include FJ labs, Metamorphic Ventures, Crosslink Capital, Founder Collective, Big Sur Ventures and Necotium. TechCrunch has more here.

Roli, a seven-year-old, London-based music technology company, has raised $27 million in funding led by Foundry Group, with participation from BGF Ventures, Founders Fund, Balderton Capital, FirstMark Capital, Index Ventures, Horizons Ventures, and Universal Music Group. TechCrunch has more here.

VTS, a five-year-old, New York-based commercial real estate leasing and asset management platform, has raised $55 million in Series C funding led by Insight Venture Partners, with participation from OpenView Venture Partners andTrinity Ventures. TechCrunch has more here.

Winc, a 4.5-year-old, L.A.-based online wine retailer that’s been known until now as Club W, has raised $17.5 million in new funding co-led by Shining Capital and earlier investor Bessemer Venture Partners. TechCrunch has more here.

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Exits

Adobe yesterday announced plans to acquire Livefyre, a service that’s probably best known for its online commenting system. Terms of the deal aren’t being disclosed. Livefyre had raised $67.3 million from investors, shows CrunchBase. Adobe participated in its last $47 million round (as did Salesforce), so the two companies were already quite familiar with each other. TechCrunch has more here.

Pinterest, the popular, San Francisco-based visual bookmarking tool, has acquired URX, a three-year-old, San Francisco-based adtech startup whose platform helps consumers to discover content inside mobile apps. Terms of the deal weren’t disclosed. URX had raised $15 million from investors, shows CrunchBase.

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People

It’s graduation time; this year, Oracle cofounder Larry Ellison is giving the commencement address at USC.

Apple has hired famed robotics expert Yoky Matsuoka, one of the co-founders of Google’s X lab and former head of technology at Nest, to work on the iPhone maker’s health projects. Fortune has more here.

Octopus Ventures in London has hired as an investor mobile gaming entrepreneur Eyal Rabinovich, who’s best known for co-founding the Israeli game publisher PlayScape.

In case you missed all the coverage (we love our tech execs!): 23andMe CEOAnne Wojcicki attended the Met Gala on Monday night with New York Yankee slugger Alex Rodriguez. They arrived in the same car as Wojcicki’s ex-husband, Google co-founder Sergey Brin, and his girlfriend of the last year,Nicole Shanahan, who founded the patent-technology company ClearAccesIP. Tesla Motors and SpaceX CEO Elon Musk was also at the gala, with his glamorous mama. So was Uber CEO Travis Kalanick, Apple CEO Tim Cook, Emerson Collective CEO Laurene Powell Jobs, Instagram CEO Kevin Systrom, and Yahoo CEO Marissa Mayer. Business Insider has more pics here.

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Jobs

NextEv, a Chinese car company taking on Tesla (and headed up by Cisco’s former chief strategy officer, Padmasree Warrior), is looking to hire a corporate development associate. The job is in San Jose, Ca.

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Essential Reads

Apple is revamping its streaming music service, in response to customers not liking it very much.

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Detours

The fascinating correlation between the first class cabin and air rage.

That baby is sizing you up.

Beautiful Kung Fu visualizations.

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Retail Therapy

A precision-engineered humidor, for your herb(s).

Hi, all! Happy Tuesday.

Quick mention: As most of you know, we also work with TechCrunch, and TechCrunch Disrupt is coming up next week in New York. We’re excited. We’re interviewing former big bank executive (and now startup founder) Sallie Krawcheck; actress and The Honest Company cofounder Jessica Alba; and investors Josh Kopelman, Andy Weissman, and Chris Douvos. (Other featured speakers include Casey Niestat, David Plouffe and B. J. Novak. Woot.)

Just a note that SVC may be a leetle skimpier while we’re traveling/busy with the event. It might also come at unexpected times, as today. (It keeps us pretty tied-up for a bit.) Hope you’ll bear with us.:)

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Top News in the A.M.

It’s official: Fiat is partnering with Google to build several dozen self-driving prototypes.

Meanwhile, Tesla Motors is probably looking at a big quarterly loss and a yearly sales miss, say UBS analysts, who issued a note to clients this morning.

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Designer Fund Raises $20 Million for Debut Effort

Designer Fund, a San Francisco outfit that looks to invest in seed-stage startups that feature designers on their founding teams, has raised $20 million in funding from unnamed individual investors, most of them successful designers looking to support the next generation.

The four-year-old firm was founded by Enrique Allen and Ben Blumenfeld, who remain its only general partners. Previously, Allen was a designer with 500 Startups and Facebook’s fbFund; Blumenfeld was meanwhile an early design lead at Facebook who spent more than five years with the company. The two met at the Stanford Persuasive Tech Lab, which studies how computer design can change human behavior; when Blumenfeld left Facebook to take a sabbatical, they decided to form Designer Fund.

“We saw a lack of capital that really understood and valued design at the early stages,” explains Allen, who notes that Airbnb’s founders weren’t taken seriously at first because few understood how two design students could rethink and expand the travel market.

More here.

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New Fundings

Age of Learning, a nine-year-old, Glendale, Ca.-based education company behind the popular children’s site and app ABCMouse, has quietly raised $150 million at a $1 billion valuation led by Iconiq Capital. TechCrunch has more here.

Bench, a four-year-old, Vancouver-based online bookkeeping service for small businesses and independent contractors, has raised $16 million in Series B funding led by Bain Capital Ventures, with participation from earlier backers Altos Ventures and Contour Venture Partners. The company has now raised $33 million altogether. More here.

CloudHealth Technologies, a Boston-based cloud service management company, has raised $20 million in Series C funding led by Sapphire Ventures, with participation from earlier backers Scale Venture Partners, .406 Ventures and Sigma Prime Ventures. More here.

Digital Reasoning, a 16-year-old, Nashville, Tn.-based cognitive computing company, has raised $40 million in Series D funding co-led by Lemhi Ventures and Nasdaq, with participation from earlier backers Goldman Sachs andHCA.

Envera Health, a Richmond, Va.-based company that sells clinical delivery and physician support services, has raised $14 million in new funding co-led by Harbert Venture Partners and Noro-Moseley Partners, with participation from New Richmond Ventures. More here.

Maana, a 3.5-year-old, Palo Alto, Ca.-based analytics platform, has raised $26 million in Series B funding led by Saudi Armco Energy Ventures, with participation from Shell Technology Ventures and previous backers GE Ventures, Chevron Technology Ventures, Intel Capital, and Frost Data Capital. More here.

MobiKwik, a 6.5-year-old, Gurgaon, India-based mobile wallet company, has raised $50 million in Series C funding co-led by Japan’s GMO and Taiwan’s Mediatek, with participation from Sequoia Capital India and Treeline Asia. TechStory has more here.

Parasail Health, a two-year-old, Palo Alto, Ca.-based company that provides term loans to help individuals cover their out of pocket medical expenses, has raised an undisclosed amount of seed funding round from Peter Thiel and Montage Ventures. More here.

Hi, everyone, welcome back!

We forgot to mention anything Friday, but we hope our Greek and other Orthodox readers had a very happy Easter yesterday.:)

No column today. (Swamped.)

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Top News in the A.M.

So much for a market correction? As the WSJ reports, Fidelity Investmentsreversed course in March, marking up many of the stakes in closely held technology companies it had previously cut. Much more here.

What we know about Craig Steven Wright, the businessman who just claimed today that he’s the inventor of Bitcoin, via the Washington Post.

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New Fundings

Acquisio, a 13-year-old, Brossard, Quebec-based performance marketing software company that sells to small businesses, has raised an undisclosed amount of capital from Wellington Financial. More here.

Airstoc, a 2.5-year-old, Sheffield, U.K.-based online marketplace that connects professional drone pilots with companies looking for aerial videography, has raised $700,000 in seed funding from Point Nine Capital, Launchub, and Thibaud Elziere. Tech.eu has more here.

Bnbsitter, a three-year-old, Paris, France-based on-demand marketplace for concierge-related services, has raised $2.5 million in Series A funding from Frederic Mazzella and CapDecisif Management. TechCrunch has more here.

Brightwheel, a two-year-old, San Francisco-based mobile platform for early education, has raised $600,000 from investors Mark Cuban and Chris Sacca, who met the company on the ABC television show “Shark Tank.” You can watch the pitch, which aired Friday night, here. Brightwheel had previously raised $2.2 million in seed funding from RRE Ventures and Eniac Ventures.

CarVi, a two-year-old, San Jose, Ca.-based company whose dashboard device analyzes a driver’s actions and surroundings in real time to provide feedback and warnings when necessary, has raised $5 million in Series A funding from Samsung Ventures, Korea Telecom Investment, and POSCO. Crowdfund Insider has more here.

Certrax, a months-old, Woodbridge, N.J.-based company whose app helps real estate owners, property managers and service providers manage third-party risk, has raised an undisclosed amount of funding from WorldQuant Ventures. More here.

CodeCombat, a three-year-old, San Francisco, Ca.-based platform for kids to learn computer science, has raised $2 million in seed funding from Third Kind Venture Capital, Andreessen Horowitz and Allen & Company. More here.

DocsApp, a year-old, Bangalore, India-based medical consultation app, has raised $1.2 million in seed funding, including from Rebright Partners and angel investors Anand Rajaraman and Venky Harinarayan. Inc42 has more here.

EclecticIQ, a two-year-old, Amsterdam, Netherlands-based threat intelligence software company, has raised €5.5m ($6.3 million) in Series A funding, including from Inked Capital and Kpn Ventures. The company has now raised roughly $7.3 million altogether. More here.

Graybug Vision, a Redwood City, Ca.-based early stage pharmaceutical company that’s developing ophthalmology products, has raised $44.5 million in Series B funding led by Deerfield Management Company. More here.

Home Chef, a three-year-old, Chicago-based startup that delivers recipes and ingredients to its customers to make home cooking easier, has raised $10 million in Series A funding led by Shining Capital and Guild Capital. TechCrunch has more here.

Homology Medicines, a year-old, Lexington, Ma.-based gene editing and gene therapy company focused on developing treatments for patients with rare diseases, has raised $43.5 million in Series A funding from 5AM Ventures and ARCH Venture Partners, with participation from Temasek and Deerfield Management. Xconomy has more here.

LocBox, a five-year-old, San Francisco, Ca-based startup that provides local businesses with a multi-channel marketing platform, has raised $5.1 million in Series A funding from InterWest Partners, Accel Partners, Google Ventures, 500 Startups, and numerous angel investors.

MyNFO, a 1.5-year-old, Tampa, Fla.-based media platform for marketers and consumers, has raised $6.8 million in Series A funding led by Almaz Capital. More here.

Nuki, a 1.5-year-old, Graz, Austria-based maker of a Bluetooth smartlock, has raised €2 million ($2.3 million) in seed funding from Up to Eleven, Venta Beteiligungs GmbH, and aws Austria Wirtschaftsservice GesmbH, among others.

SAM Labs, a two-year-old, London-based company that makes an internet-connected kit for aspiring inventors and coders, has raised £3.2 million ($4.5 million) from a group of investors led by Imperial Ventures. TechCrunch has more here.

Sienna Biopharmaceuticals, a Westlake Village, Ca.-based aesthetics and medical dermatology startup, has raised $34 million in Series A funding led by ARCH Venture Partners, with participation from Altitude Life Science Ventures, Partner Fund Management and Venvest Capital. L.A. Biz has more here.

Sqreen, a year-old, Paris, France-based app security startup whose SaaS platform is used to inspect apps and protect them real-time, has raised $2.3 million in funding from Alven Capital, Point Nine Capital, Kima Ventures,50 Partners and numerous angel investors. TechCrunch has more here.

Varo Money, an eight-month-old, San Francisco, Ca.-based mobile-only banking startup, has raised $27 million in funding led by Warburg Pincus, with David Coulter, a special limited partner of Warburg Pincus, joining Varo’s board of directors. More here.

WeCounsel, a five-year-old, Chattanooga, Tn.-based telemedicine software company, has raised $3.5 million in Series A funding from Longmeadow Capital Partners, Point Judith Capital and CVH Holdings. More here.

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New Funds

According to Fortune, Heritage Group, a 30-year-old, Nashville, Tn.-based venture and growth equity firm that focuses on healthcare, has closed its second fund with roughly $220 million in capital commitments. Heritage closed its last fund with $170 million in 2011. More here.

Leerink Capital Partners, a three-year-old, Boston-based, healthcare-focused venture firm (that’s affiliated with Leerink Partners, a 21-year-old, Boston-based investment bank), is hoping to raise up to $250 million for a new fund, shows an SEC filing.

Rothenberg Ventures, a four-year-old, San Francisco-based seed and early-stage VC firm, is looking to raise up to $50 million for its next fund, according to an SEC filing that shows it has closed on at least $17 million in commitments thus far.

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Exits

ACT, the college and career readiness assessment company, has acquired OpenEd, a 2.5-year-old, Los Gatos, Ca.-based K-12 standards-aligned educational resource startup. Terms of the deal aren’t being disclosed. According to CrunchBase, OpenEd had raised $2 million in seed funding from PivotNorth Capital.

Oracle is shelling out $532 million for Opower, a SaaS-based customer engagement and energy efficiency company that went pubic in 2014 and whose market cap was roughly $427 million as of earlier this morning. TechCrunch has more here.

Vimeo, an IAC subsidiary that’s more recently been investing in its own original content and creator community, has acquired VHX, a company that provides a platform for premium over-the-top subscription video channels. Deal terms were not revealed, but according to CrunchBase, five-year-old VHX had raised $10.25 million from investors, including Comcast Ventures, Lerer Hippeau Ventures, Union Square Ventures, and others. TechCrunch has more here.

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People

Video games pioneer Nolan Bushnell is planning to revive the “hardcore fundamental game design” of arcades to make mobile titles worth playing.

Do you earn less than a Silicon Valley intern?

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Jobs

RRE Ventures is looking to bring aboard an undergraduate student to be its content platform intern for 10 hours a week during the school year and full-time in summer. The job is in New York.

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Essential Reads

The government wants your fingerprint to unlock your phone.  Should that be allowed?

WhatsApp was just blocked in Brazil for the second time in less than six months for failing to comply with an order to turn over data in a criminal investigation.

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Detours

Shelby Bonnie’s iPad took quite a vacation last month.

What happens when Amy Schumer takes over your Tinder.

It isn’t your imagination. TSA lines have gotten a lot worse (and they look to stay that way through year end).

The hoverboard we’ve all been dreaming about.

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Retail Therapy

Dwayne “The Rock” Johnson wants to start waking your ass up with this, his new motivational alarm clock app.

You perhaps thought we forgot you this fine Friday. We did not! (Busy day.)

Hope you have a terrific weekend, everyone. See you soon.:)

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Top News in the A.M.

TiVo, whose name became synonymous with the act of recording live television shows, is being acquired by Rovi for about $1.1 billion, the companies announced this morning. Dealbook has more here.

Fitbit just won a ruling that invalidated the last of the Jawbone patents that were the subject of a dispute at the U.S. International Trade Commission.

LinkedIn surprised Wall Street yesterday with better-than-expected first quarter results. TechCrunch has more here.

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Handcuffed to Uber

Plenty of people would give everything to be an early employee at seven-year-old Uber. But Uber employees who’ve been with the ride-share company for at least a few years have discovered a considerable downside to their ride with the transportation juggernaut. They can’t afford to quit. Startup employees have to exercise their options within 90 days of leaving a company or else lose them and at Uber, that cost is simply too high.

A quick scan of LinkedIn for former employees underscores the point. Of Uber’s roughly 6,700 employees, only a tiny fraction have left, and in most cases, those hires weren’t around long enough to be worrying about vested options.

Employees of privately held companies have long wrestled with this issue. (We wrote about it herelast summer.) With valuations of many privately held tech companies having soared so dramatically in recent years, the amount of capital needed to buy employee options has escalated at an unprecedented pace for employees at a variety of places.

Uber appears to be the most extreme example ever, however. In a completely hypothetical example, let’s say an early, top Uber engineer was given .5 percent of the company. Now let’s say this person was awarded options in 2011, when Uber raised $11 million in Series A funding at a reported $60 million valuation. His ownership stake at the time would have been $300,000. Yet today, that same stake (undiluted) would now be worth $300 million at Uber’s reported current post-money valuation of $60 billion. That’s a paper gain of $299,700,000.

It’s very hard to cry about that, it’s true. But there is bad news: at a 40 percent tax rate for short-term gains, if the engineer opted to leave Uber, he’d confront a tax bill of $119,880,000, not including that earlier $300,000 needed to exercise the options. And leaving Uber would start the clock. He’d have just 90 days to come up with the $300,000, and he’d have to come up with the rest of the money for the much larger tax bill by the next April 15.

Maybe Uber will be publicly traded by then. Maybe it won’t.

Some highly valued companies have tried to ease this issue for employees by allowing them to sell some of their sales to preapproved secondary sellers at certain points. Not so Uber, whichamended its bylaws in 2013 to restrict unapproved secondary sales. Not only does it not allow employees to sell their shares to secondary buyers, it also won’t allow them to use services like those offered by 137 Ventures, which makes loans to founders and early employees, using their stock as collateral. (Snapchat, Dropbox, and Airbnb have similar policies.)

Our sense is that the company doesn’t mess around, either. Four secondary players have told us of employees who’ve tried to find ways around Uber’s regulations, only to be stymied. “We’ve been approached by big groups of early employees, and I know a lot has been written about loans or hypothetical products to get around its policies,” says one source. “But Uber’s position is that if it learns [of a sale or loan] that goes around its share-transfer restrictions, there will be consequences.”

It may seem uncharitable on some level, but it’s very much by design, according to insiders, who say Uber CEO Travis Kalanick has two primary motivations for keeping his company’s shares on lockdown.

More here.

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New Fundings

Cardiac Insight, an eight-year-old, Kirkland, Wa.-based company that makes advanced cardiac and respiratory sensing and computing technologies, has raised $2.5 million in Series C funding from undisclosed backers. More here.

Slantrange, a nearly three-year-old, San Diego, Ca.-based company that develops aerial remote sensing and analytics technology for customers in agriculture, has raised $5 million in Series A funding led by The Investor Group. More here.

Stance, a 6.5-year-old, San Clemente, Ca..-based lifestyle apparel company, has raised $30 million in Series D funding led by Mercato Partners. Earlier backers August Capital, Kleiner Perkins Caufield Byers, Menlo Ventures,Shasta Ventures and Sherpa Capital also joined the round. Beehive Startups has more here.

VividCortex, a four-year-old, Charlottesville, Va.-based database performance monitoring company, has raised $4.5 million in Series A funding led by New Enterprise Associates, with participation from Battery Ventures.

World View Enterprises, a three-year-old Tucson, Az.-based space tourism company spun off from Paragon Space Development Corp., has raised $15 million in Series B funding led by Canaan Partners, with participation fromNorwest Venture Partners, Tencent, Moment Ventures and Base Ventures. TechCrunch has more here.

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New Funds

Mayfield, the 46-year-old Sand Hill Road firm, has raised $525 million across two new funds, including a $400 million early-stage firm and a $125 million fund that will be used to support those of its portfolio companies that gain traction and need later-stage funding. Mayfield has raised 14 early-stage funds previously. It closed its last fund with $365 million in 2012. More here.

——

People

Reports in the Russian and tech press today that Google tried to acquire the Telegram messaging app last year for $1 billion have been firmly rebutted by Telegram founder Pavel Durov. More here.

Carl Icahn has sold his 45.8 million Apple shares since the start of the year, telling CNBC yesterday that he’s concerned about China’s policies regarding the technology giant. More here.

Investor Chris Sacca spoke at a conference yesterday, telling his interviewer that there’s a “greed case for diversity.” More here.

Bloomberg unmasks the men behind Zero Hedge, Wall Street’s renegade blog.

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Essential Reads

Venmo, the hugely popular peer-to-peer payment service owned by PayPal, is under investigation by the Federal Trade Commission over “deceptive or unfair practices.” The Verge has more here.

Fiat is reportedly in the late stage of talks with Alphabet‘s self-driving car division about a technology partnership. The WSJ has more here.

SpaceX, the space exploration firm founded by Elon Musk, is planning to send an unmanned spacecraft to Mars by 2018.

—–

Detours

Hippos devouring watermelons.

When the landlord is a friend.

The downside of Nest cams.

Before you avenge your father’s death, please leave a positive Yelp review for my secret dojo.

—–

Retail Therapy

People really seem to like this grill disguised as a garbage can. (Just remarking.)

Hi, happy Thursday, everyone!

—–

Top News in the A.M.

It’s official. Comcast announced this morning that it will spend $3.8 billion to acquire DreamWorks Animation.

Facebook hosted an earnings call yesterday, revealing surging revenue as its increasingly popular mobile app and push into live video continued to attract new advertisers.

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This Silicon Valley VC Says Chinese Investors are Joining Series A Deals, and They’re Playing “Hardball”

As a venture investor for the last 20 years, George Zachary has witnessed plenty of trends develop and fizzle. Yesterday, we talked with him about what he’s seeing right now. One of the newest wrinkles he noted is a growing number of Chinese investors who’ve grown aggressive about getting into Series A deals, and who seem to be playing by their own rules.

Our chat with Zachary — a general partner atCRV who has led the venture firm into bets on Twitter, Yammer and Udacity, among others — has been edited for length.

You’re investing in seed and Series A deals. Are you not concerning yourself with what’s happening in the later-stage and public markets? That seems to be a common refrain for early-stage investors.

You definitely have to worry about whether your company can be financed later on, no matter what everyone says. In fact, a lot of Series A companies that have to do an extension of the Series A are raising at lower valuations. One of our founders has done two startups before, but valuations in the space where he’s operating all went down 50 percent, so he’s just accepting that he’ll have to raise his (extension) round with a lot more dilution than he wanted. It is what it is.

How much have valuations come down, and where are you seeing them hit the hardest?

Well, for celebrity founders, they are staying high.We’re doing a celebrity-founder deal now that has a high price tag, and everyone wants into it. For repeat founders with a good exit the last time, the price is always going to be high, plus or minus 10 percent. This particular team is at concept stage. We’re basically handing them a near-blank check.

But valuations are down elsewhere. The average thing coming out of Y Combinator is probably a half to three-quarters of what it was [in terms of valuation in recent years]. The average seed-stage deal is half.

I should mention that for celebrity founders, research supports that if they’re operating in the same space [as their last company], they have a higher rate of success [than other people]. If they move from databases to clean tech or from cell towers to social networks, they usually don’t do super well.

According to CrunchBase, CRV was involved in at least 27 financings last year. Its data shows just four deals in 2016. Is the firm waiting for the market to sort itself out?

Not explicitly. We’ve committed to three things in the last month that are in the docs stage.

Docs are taking longer because there are new investors coming in, and they want more stuff in their terms. These are newer investors, often foreign investors, who are basically saying: “I want senior preference to [a company’s earlier] investors,” and that’s adding two or three weeks as they usually ask right as the docs are closing.

Wait, what’s happening? Who are these new investors, and how prevalent is this? When you say foreign, do you mean mostly from China? Obviously, a lot of Chinese investors are looking to invest more money in the U.S.

They’re almost all from China, and they want all of their preferences to be senior to everyone else’s. What’s happening is, since they know the startup’s financials, they just wait it out. By that point, we’ve already signed a term sheet and turned off a lot of other people who wanted to invest. These things never come up in the term sheet phase but later in the docs. They’ll say, “We did our diligence, and we need XYZ to invest.”

More here.

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New Fundings

Ionic, a four-year-old, Madison, Wi.-based cross-platform suite that says it enables developers to write once and deploy native-quality experiences across numerous platforms, has raised $8.5 million in Series A funding led by General Catalyst Partners. More here.

Levyx, a three-year-old, Irvine, Ca.-based high-speed data processing technology company, has raised $5.4 million in Series A funding led by the Chicago-based venture firm OCA Ventures. Other backers include Amino Capital, Sumavision USA Corp., and individual investors. More here.

Poncho, a three-year-old, New York-based personalized weather-forecasting service, has raised $2 million in seed funding led by Lerer Hippeau Ventures. Other participants in the round include Greycroft Partners, Comcast Ventures, Venture51 Capital Partners, RRE Ventures, Broadway Video Ventures, Ore Ventures,  and Betaworks, the New York start-up studio where Poncho was incubated. Numerous former Wall Street Journal executives also joined the financing, including Gordon Crovitz. More here.

SpaceVR, a year-old, San Jose, Ca.-based platform for creating cinematic, live, virtual space tourism, has raised $1.25 million in seed funding led by Shanda Group, with participation from Skywood Capital. More here.

Xola, a five-year-old, San Francisco-based software platform that manages booking and marketing for tour providers, has raised $5 million in Series A funding led by Rakuten Travel, which is Japan’s largest online travel agency. TechCrunch has more here.

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New Funds

Menlo Ventures, the 40-year-old, Sand Hill Road venture firm, has raised a new, $250 million “special opportunities fund,” says a spokeswoman. (The SEC filing is here.) The idea: to address a comparative dearth of capital for startups that are looking for Series B and C funding, now that non-traditional players like Fidelity and BlackRock are investing less actively in privately held startups. Menlo closed its most recent early-stage fund in 2015 with $400 million in commitments. More here.

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Exits

Abbott agreed today to acquire St. Jude Medical for $25 billion, bringing together two manufacturers of devices for cardiovascular disease. Dealbook has more here.

Stemcentrx, an eight-year-old, South San Francisco-based company developing disease-specific cancer treatments, is being acquired by cancer drugmaker AbbVie in a transaction that values the company at up to $10.2 billion. The deal is a part stock, part cash transaction that includes $4 billion in milestone-based payouts over the next several years. It represents a huge win for Peter Thiel’s Founders Fund, which had invested $300 million in the company (more than than it has poured into any other portfolio company). The firm is calling it its largest exit to date.

Textura, a company that makes cloud-based contract and payment management software for the construction industry and which went public in 2013, is being acquired by Oracle for $663 million in cash, net of Textura’s existing cash. TechCrunch has more here.

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People

Jake Chapman, previously a partner at Sazze Partners, a young, early-stage firm in Campbell, Ca., has left to launch a new, seed-stage firm, Gelt Venture Capital. More here.

Online travel giant Priceline Group just announced that CEO Darren Huston is resigning after an investigation found he had a personal relationship with an employee that violated the company’s code of conduct. More here.

London’s Balderton Capital has promoted long-standing general partnerBernard Liautaud, who joined the firm in mid-2008, to the newly created role of managing partner. More here.

Facebook is adding a new class of stock that will help keep cofounder and CEOMark Zuckerberg in control. More here.
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Data

According to a new McKinsey study, the “forces that have driven exceptional investment returns over the past 30 years are weakening, and even reversing. It may be time for investors to lower their expectations.” More here.

Everything you’ve ever wanted to know about Latin America’s venture scene, including its five-year outlook (courtesy of LAVCA).

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Essential Reads

Yahoo’s $8 billion black hole.

A Snapchat filter that invites users show off their speed while taking a selfie is being blamed for a serious car accident that left a man with traumatic brain injuries after being struck by someone going over 100 miles per hour. More here.

—–

Detours

Should you hug your dog?

“Uber Ex,” a rom-com spec script.

This is the best news ever, says every out-of-shape journalist on the planet.

Favorite tweet of the week.

—–

Retail Therapy

Aether jackets, for handsome guys with boats (is what we’re picking up here).

Halfway there! Hope you have a great Wednesday, everyone.

Top News in the A.M.

Reportedly, the FBI doesn’t plan to tell Apple how it cracked a San Bernardino, Ca., terrorist’s phone, leaving Apple in the dark on a security vulnerability on some iPhone models. The WSJ has more here.

In separate news, Apple‘s streak of 51 consecutive quarters of uninterrupted sales growth is over — and its expansion may not resume until late this year. Bloomberg has more here.

Twitter now has revenue problems, it revealed yesterday during an earnings call (after which its stock tanked). Recode has more here.

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It’s Not Just Uber: Carnegie Mellon’s Computer Science Dean on the School’s Poaching Problem

Andrew Moore was a professor of computer science and robotics at Carnegie Mellon University for a dozen years when Google hired him away in 2006 to lead some of its efforts around ad targeting and fraud prevention.

CMU lured Moore back in 2014, making him the dean of its computer science school. But he still understands well what goes through his colleagues’ minds when industry comes calling, and he says the battle to keep them in academia grows fiercer by the year.

Earlier today, we talked with Moore about Uber, which famously raided the school’s robotics department a year ago, poaching 40 of its researchers and scientists. We also talked about how Moore entices people to stay, and the newest new thing his 2,000-student school is focused on right now. Our chat has been edited for length.

Sorry to start with a question you’re surely asked too often, but just how big a hit did the school take when Uber recruited away some of your professors and researchers?

This kind of thing happens from time to time, especially in fast-growing areas where academia and industry are advancing things all the time. In January 2015, Uber hired away four faculty and about 35 technical staff to start its Advanced Technologies Center in Pittsburgh. By the school’s standards, this is one of many examples where our faculty disappear for a while into industry. It happened to me. Usually, every year, between five and 15 faculty members take a leave of absence for one or two or up to four years. Some never come back. Most do.

The perception was that this was a significant wave, though.

And that public perception is what really hurts. The truth is we have about 40 faculty and four took a leave of absence for a while to work for Uber. Meanwhile, this is such a growth industry that we’ve hired 17 new faculty in the past year, about half in robotics and half in machine learning. It’s frustrating. We’re trying to find space for new robotics people, not suffering from a lack of them.

What’s the school’s relationship with Uber like today? Is there one?

More here.

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New Fundings

BitFlyer, a two-year-old, Japan-based bitcoin exchange, has raised $27 million in Series C funding led by SBI Investment, with participation from earlier backer Venture Labo Investments. Coindesk has more here.

BlueVine, a nearly three-year-old, Palo Alto, Ca.-based company providing fast financing to small businesses, has raised an undisclosed amount of capital from Citi Ventures. More here.

CareOnGo, a nine-month-old, New Delhi, India-based chain of co-branded online pharmacies, has raised an undisclosed amount in pre-Series funding from Farooq Oomerbhoy of FAO Ventures and a group of other investors. VCCircle has more here.

ClearTax, a five-year-old, New Delhi, India-based startup that helps customers file their income tax returns electronically in India, has raised $1.3 million in seed funding, including from Max Levchin (this is the PayPal co-founder’s first investment in India), Scott Banister, Neeraj Arora, Naval Ravikant, and Ruchi Sanghvi. TechCrunch has more here.

Desktop Metal, a year-old, Lexington, Ma.-based commercial metal 3D printing startup led by A123 founder Ric Fulop, has raised $33.8 million in new funding per an SEC filing first flagged by Fortune. Fortune says the round values the company at more than $100 million and involves earlier backers Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers, Lux Capital, New Enterprise Associates, Data Collective, and Founder Collective. More here.

Disruptive Technologies, a 2.5-year-old, Bergen, Norway-based developer of wireless sensors, has raised roughly $6.2 million in funding from Ubon Partners. More here.